John Harper of the New York Daily News reports that the Braves have asked the Yankees about the availability of Eduardo Nunez. That’s fine as far as it goes. The Braves need someone to play shortstop and there aren’t a ton of great candidates available.

Think of it as last call. You look around and find someone that might make you feel good for a little while. I won’t judge you, man. That is unless you actually think you love that person at the end of the bar:

“They need offense, they need a shortstop because they don’t want to bring (Alex) Gonzalez back, and they like Nunez a lot,” Harper’s source said. “They know the jury is out on him defensively, but they think his offense is strong enough that he could move to the outfield if he can’t be their long-term answer at short.”

Er, OK. Look, Nunez has his uses, but he also has an OBP of .318 and a grand total of 30 homers in 2700+ career minor league plate appearances. I know it’s not the 90s anymore, but if it’s offense which makes him attractive to you, Frank Wren, you may want to make sure you aren’t goggling.

Not to say that there isn’t a lot of room for the Braves and Yankees to make a trade here. The Braves have a lot of pitching lying around and will have to move Jair Jurrjens or Tommy Hanson — almost certainly Jurrjens — at some point soon. These two teams have hooked up in trades in the past and it would not be at all shocking if they did again.

But Braves: you had better ask for something more than Eduardo Nunez’s mighty bat if you’re going to make a deal, OK?

The Oakland Athletics ballpark saga has dragged on for years and years and years. They’ve considered San Jose, Fremont and at least three locations in Oakland as potential new ballpark sites. The whole process has lasted almost as long as the Braves and Rangers played in their old parks before building new ones.

In the past several months the Athletics’ “stay in Oakland” plan has gained momentum. At one point the club thought it had an agreement to build a new place near Peralta/Laney College in downtown Oakland. There have been hiccups with that, so two other sites — Howard Terminal, favored by city officials — and the current Oakland Coliseum site have remained in play. There are pros and cons to each of these sites, as we have discussed in the past.

One consideration not mentioned before was mentioned by team president David Kaval yesterday: sea level rise due to climate change. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Kaval mentioned twice that the Howard Terminal site would have to take into account sea-level rise and transportation concerns — and he said there have been conversations with the city and county and the Joint Powers Authority about developing the Coliseum site.

The Howard Terminal/Jack London Square area of Oakland has been identified as susceptible to dramatically increased flooding as a result of projected sea level rise due to climate change. On the other side of the bay both the San Francisco Giants and Golden State Warriors have had to consider sea level rise in their stadium/arena development plans. Now it’s the Athletics’ turn.

Fifteen of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams play in coastal areas and another five of them play near the Great Lakes. While some of our politicians don’t seem terribly concerned about it all, people and organizations who will have skin the game 10, 20 and 50 years from now, like the Oakland Athletics, are taking it into account.